A strange competitor?

[SmartWombat]

A weird concept, lenses on sensors that clip into a body with the controls on.

http://www.fourthirds-user.com/forum...ead.php?t=5664

[Liz]

A weird concept, lenses on sensors that clip into a body with the controls on.

http://www.fourthirds-user.com/forum...ead.php?t=5664

Hmmmm.....I checked out Ricoh and their sample images. For what this system would cost (and you have to buy a sensor with each lens which somehow seems wasteful, at least to me), I wasn't too impressed with the images. They are good, but not "stunning" as I expected they would be. Also, I think this would eventually add up to a lot of equipment (for those of us who like to buy lenses!). Just my personal opinion.

Sample images:

http://www.ricoh.com/r_dc/gxr/sample...html#sample_05


BTW, Amazon already is taking pre-orders. You have to sort through this page to find the body, lens/sensor etc.

Body/accessories - prices

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?ur...Ricoh+GXR+(S10)

Thanks Paul....it is really an interesting concept - it will also be interesting to see where it goes and how popular it becomes.

Liz

[BlueRob]

Interesting...but is not my cup of tea either...and the sample images IMO are nothing to brag about.

[SmartWombat]

It seems a strange solution to getting dust in the camera when you change lenses.
As the lenses appear not to be changeable on the sensors.

[LightBright]

Im sure later on they might have sensors and lenses that are interchangeable with out the need to buy a different body. I saw some interesting applications when useing this system and I hope the price goes down, seems to be very flexible. However I expected much better image quality since the sensor and lenses are "optimized for each other".

[Atomic2]

You know what, the concept is growing on me.

Sensors, relative to the cost of lens and camera, are actually not all that expensive. The body alone for an APS-C camera can be as cheap as 5-600 dollars, how much of that is the sensor? Ill be willing to bet that the body, processor, battery, prism, etc, are at least 2/3 of cost, if not more. Adding a hundred or two to the cost of a lens is really not all that significant when the lens costs a great deal already.

However Ideally I've always an envisioned a completely modular system where the sensor could also be removed and upgraded. Like the RED system camera but with consumer cameras.

[drg]

The 'control' module could also be upgraded in this system. Or the lens/sensor bodies could be ganged on to a single unit for multiple simultaneous shots.

Lots of possibilities. How practical and if this will be just another clever concept that probably will fade away remains to be be seen.

I do believe that it is an indicator that a lot of future cameras are not going to look or act the way we have come to expect. New photographers are not going to be tied into legacy lens systems as much and the rapid speed at which all of this technology can change is going to alter how a portion of the market behaves.

I do like the idea of multiple sensor capability and thus size of the camera somewhere in the future. Lenses and sensors optimized to each other for use has a lot of attraction but will this be the format???